gestures
by tofuparty
Summary: Weeks after the Finn/Kurt drama of 'Theatricality', Kurt's STILL not speaking to him. Finn gets advice from Artie on how to win Kurt over. Several epiphanies happen.
1. Chapter 1

"I think Kurt's still mad at me."

"What on earth gave you that idea?" asked Artie with an air of long-suffering patience. After the whole Puck-Quinn-baby debacle he'd somehow been appointed "Finn Hummel's temporary best friend", a.k.a. "the one to bear the brunt of Finn's rants, complaints and late-night impromptu videogame sessions". Naturally he'd been trying to get himself fired at every opportunity, but so far he had not been successful.

Finn, to whom irony meant "something to do with metals, and also what blood smells like," silently handed him a crumpled piece of paper. Artie unfolded it and read (with some difficulty):

_THINGS KURT SAID THAT MAKES IT SOUND LIKE HE'S STILL MAD AT ME_

1. "I'm so sorry I can't attend the sleepover, Tina. My dad is making me drive someone to a 24-hour pizza joint. I know, he ruins all my plans."  
2. "Mrs. Campbell, may I request a partner switch? I refuse to work on a physics project with a person who takes out his calculator when asked to divide 14 by 2."  
3. "Dad, could you tell the person sitting to the left of you to pass me the remote control?"  
4. "Finn, I'm still mad at you."

"Well, I suppose I can see how you derived that conclusion," Artie said. He paused. Finn was looking at him expectantly. "And you want me to do what, exactly...?"

"I don't want him to be mad at me!" Finn wailed, hurling himself onto Artie's bed and tripping over the bedside table in the process, knocking all of Artie's Star Trek memorabilia onto the floor. Artie winced. "It's seriously super awkward at home, and like, Kurt's a cool guy. I don't want him to be pissed at me forever."

"Have you tried talking to him yet?"

"Dude, seriously, I've tried." Finn's voice was muffled by the pillow. "The first time I said 'cmon, I wore a red shower curtain for you, doesn't that cut me some slack?' and then he said from now on he would employ a paradigm in which he would assume I were either deceased or invisible and I have no idea what those words mean but judging from the fact that he's ignored me every other time I've tried to talk to him, I think that means I'm getting the silent treatment." He paused for breath.

"Your powers of deduction amaze me," Artie said dryly. "Well, you could always try to win him over with material possessions. Gifts," he added, seeing Finn's blank expression. "I'm sure Kurt would appreciate it if you, for example, bought him an iced coffee, or a DVD, or a scarf or something. You know, ease up to him gradually. I'm sure he'll soften eventually."

"Hmmm." Finn looked dubious. "I guess... but Kurt's like, super fancy. He'll only want like organic stuff, and really expensive clothes, and..."

"Well, you'll need to figure out your priorities. What's more important, your friendship with Kurt or a copy of Fatal Frame 4?"

Finn sighed. "You're right, of course. Thanks, dude."

"No problem," Artie said, smiling serenely. "Oh. And Finn?"

"Yes?"

"Get out of my house."

-

On Saturday morning Kurt stormed into the kitchen. Finn, who'd been searching inside his cereal box (the front of the box advertised a free toy! Those bastards), looked up.

"Did you put this on my bedside table?" Kurt said, holding out the offending object gingerly by the tips of his fingers, as far from his body as possible. Kurt's mousy brown hair was mussed and his eyes were dark with sleep and his nose was wrinkled in disgust and Finn thought he looked kind of like a chipmunk, and chipmunks were sorta cute so that was good, but Kurt definitely didn't look happy, and making Kurt happy was the whole point of this whole gift-giving business, so. But on the other _other_ hand this was the first time Kurt had spoken to him in weeks, so he supposed he still came out ahead.

"Um. Yes?" Finn blinked. "You don't like it?"

"Just because I am gay," Kurt said, enunciating every word very carefully, "does not mean I would find a hot-pink sweater covered with glittery metallic hearts the pinnacle of fashion. This atrocity belongs in your girlfriend's closet, not mine." He dropped the sweater into Finn's lap. "Or a 'What Not To Wear' blog post." At that he turned on his heels and strode out the door.

Finn stared into his lap and fingered the wooly material. It was kind of itchy, too. In retrospect, maybe it wasn't the best thing he could've bought.

"Dammit. I don't think the store has a return policy."

-

On Wednesday afternoon Finn waited outside Kurt's locker, gift in hand; he'd made sure to check Kurt's class schedule earlier that morning, and sure enough Kurt and Mercedes came walking down the hall, arms linked. They stopped at the sight of Finn and Kurt raised one carefully-plucked eyebrow.

"Your locker's the one over there."

"I know," he said nervously, and held out the box of chocolates. "Here, I got these for you."

Kurt glanced at the cover of the box and grimaced. "No thanks, Finn, you can keep them."

"B-but, wait. You don't want them? They're dark chocolate, which means they're fancy, and they're organic, I know that's important to you, and-"

"Coconut is the most vile filling, and if you've noticed my eating habits at home, I'm on a very strict diet regimen." Kurt sounded mildly apologetic. "I know you like them, though, so you should eat them. Mercedes, let's go, Tina's waiting for us."

As they left Mercedes looked over her shoulder at Finn and mouthed, Try harder next time. Finn very pointedly ignored her. After they'd been gone for a few minutes he shrugged and, removing the plastic wrapping, popped a chocolate in his mouth. At least he could put this gift to personal use.

-

On Friday morning Finn woke up far too late, so he missed first period and had to walk to school. He didn't mind too much though; he'd listened in on his mother and Kurt talking over breakfast the previous morning and got the perfect idea for a gift ("Some red flowers would really spruce up our living room a bit," Kurt said, eyes dreamy). The florist had given him kind of a weird look when he'd asked to have the name "Kurt" written on the tag, but his subconscious squashed down that memory fairly well.

He went through second, third, and fourth period without seeing a single sign of Kurt, though, and at lunchtime he sped over to the Glee Club cafeteria table. Artie, Tina, and Mercedes were sitting there, and he spotted Rachel and Mike heading toward their table too, but there was a noticeable lack of Kurt Hummel in the vicinity.

"Have you guys seen Kurt?" he asked.

"You didn't hear?" Mercedes said, looking up from her plate of... heated food product. "Kurt's in the nurse's office."

"What?" Finn clenched his hands into fists. "Did Karofsky and his fellow douches get to him? I swear I'll tear 'em a new one-"

"No, no, nothing like that," Tina said, waving a fork airily. "Apparently someone left a bouquet of red tulips in Kurt's locker, and he's like super allergic to tulips, so he started coughing and got these rashes on his arm and he didn't bring his foundation and concealer to school today, so- Finn? If you bang your head against the table any more you're going to lose brain cells."

"Not that it'd make a difference," Artie quipped, grinning, and Finn groaned.

"Why don't I have any decent friends?"

-

"You want what?"

"It won't take you too long, I promise," Finn said, his mouth dry. Mercedes was pretty intimidating even in her good moods, and the look she was currently giving him was... unpleasant. "Look, you just need to fill in the blank spaces here, see-"

"Kurt's favorite candy bar? Health snack bar? His favorite colors to wear (Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall)? His favorite songs to listen to when driving to school? I don't think even _he_ knows that."

"You can just guess for some of these-"

Mercedes sighed and put a hand on her hip. "Why don't you just tell him you like him? Kurt likes people who are straightforward, you know."

"Straightforward, huh?" Finn repeated, jotting it down. Then his ears had a small chat with his brain. "I'm sorry?"

"Oh, come on. The flowers? The chocolate? The sweater that I sadly did not get to see but Kurt reassures me was horrific?"

"T-those were gifts of _apology_!" Finn spluttered. "For calling him a fag, and stuff! Don't be-"

"You don't give red roses to someone as a gift of apology," Mercedes said, rolling her eyes. "You give them to someone who you're going to take to movies and a dinner afterward."

She smirked as she looked at Finn, who seemed to be incapable of coherent speech. "Deny it all you want, white boy, but you've got the hots for Kurt Hummel. He can be oblivious too, though, so you'd better just tell him straight up. Fuck this up again, though, and I'll use your intestines as skipping rope."

"It was tulips, not roses!" he yelled at her retreating back. Then as an afterthought, "Remember to fill out the paper and put it in my locker!"

-

The next day after school, he found Rachel at her locker. After giving her a quick peck on the cheek he said, "Hey, so I need to tell you-"

"It's okay, Finn." Rachel gave him a small smile. "I know already. Don't worry, I'm taking it perfectly fine, and I wish the two of you every happiness."

"Um. What?" He squinted at her. "I just wanted to tell you that I need to miss Glee practice today, basketball overlaps. What are you talking about?"

"Your illicit romance with Kurt, of course," she huffed. Finn paled. "Mercedes told me all about it. I admit that initially I was outraged that you neglected to tell me about this, but-"

"There is _nothing_ going on between us!" he yelled, then flushed as people at the surrounding lockers stared at him. He continued, more quietly, "I don't know what Mercedes told you, but I'm giving Kurt gifts because I don't want him to stay mad at me forever, and-"

"Excuses, excuses," Rachel said, waving a hand dismissively. "When my dads first met each other they also masked their love under a facade of friendship. Don't worry; in fact I was fearing that our relationship would get in my way of achieving my career goals. Oh! I almost forgot." She fished through her bag and handed Finn a large white box. "After I told my dads about your predicament they very graciously prepared some small gifts for you."

"Just wait a second, Rachel-"

"Can't speak any more for now, it's time for rehearsal!" she said cheerfully as she ran down the hall. Finn, defeated, watched her leave.

Later he went to the bathroom to rifle through the contents of the box. He had to admit Rachel's dads were very thorough: they even included an instructional pamphlet.

-

That night when he arrived home (late, due to basketball practice) he found Kurt Hummel leaning against the doorway, a grim expression on his face.

"Finn. I think we should talk."

Finn nodded wordlessly and followed Kurt into the house, where they sat on opposite ends of the sofa, very careful not to bump kneecaps or elbows.

"Look, Finn." Kurt took a deep breath. "If you want, I can just tell Dad that you've completely made up for all the things you said, that I forgive you, that everything's back to normal. I don't mind."

"What?"

"That's what this whole gift-giving fiasco is about, right? So that you and your Mom can stay at our house? So that we can all be one big happy family?"

Usually, Finn would consider Kurt's self-assured, slightly caustic attitude to be one of his strong points. Right now it was making him want to throttle Kurt.

"Kurt, it's not like that." A bead of sweat threatened to roll down his forehead. He willed it to stay there. "You're a great guy; you're really funny, you wear expensive clothes to school even though you know you're going to get dumpstered later, you read all these books with big words in them for fun, you're good at school and football and singing and dancing and choosing skincare products, and I really don't want to lose you as a friend."

"Eloquent," Kurt said sardonically, but he smirked. "Well, I can't guarantee that things will return to the way they were. But-" - and he prodded Finn gently with his toe - "I do forgive you."

Kurt's smile was genuine and Finn suddenly felt an overwhelming rush of gratitude that he had a friend like Kurt: smart and fashionable and funny and just catty enough to not be boring and he had really nice eyes that changed colors in different lights and really full lips that looked like they'd be perfect to -

"Oh, goddamnit."

-

Finn was feeling really confused and depressed.

"I'm feeling really confused and depressed," he told Artie, who was looking down at him with a mixture of exasperation and amusement and, to Finn's chagrin, a complete lack of pity. Finn attempted to insert a note of tragedy into his voice as he continued, "I told this- girl that I didn't like her, that I'd never like her, but now I think I kind of do, which is fucked up because-" and there he stopped, because he didn't think he could continue the sentence without giving away the gender (and therefore the identity) of the person in question.

"I thought you were dating Rachel?"

"She broke up with me." Finn bit his lip. "Because she knew about this other, ah, girl-"

"Do you plan to tell Kurt-ina at any point?" Finn could now hear Artie's smirk in his voice. He glared up at Artie. "Did Mercedes tell you too? Because it's not like that-"

"Mercedes told us about her suspicions, but it's really not that hard to figure out," Artie said levelly. "I mean, you gave him all those gifts -"

"Because you told me to!" Finn spluttered, face tomato-red.

"Well yeah, but flowers and heart-shaped chocolate? A sweater with hearts on it? C'mon," Artie said. "Platonic gifts are like, books without any romance in them-" ("Those don't exist," Finn interjected) "-and coffee and maybe an offer to wash his car and giftcards."

"I just tried to give him stuff he might like," Finn grumbled. He was seriously reconsidering his choice of Artie as Best Friend. "But anyway, that's not the point. I think I know I like him, but does he think I think I know I like him? I think he thinks I think I know I do, but-"

"Oh, my god. Please stop." Artie looked as if he might burst into tears. "No, I don't think Kurt knows since you very loudly declared your heterosexuality to him that time and he's probably still operating under that assumption."

"Okay. So... what should I do?"

"I don't know, man." Artie threw his hands up and groaned. "Why are you asking me? Don't you have anyone else you can harass?"

"Well, you're the only person I know who's in a relationship that's actually working," Finn pointed out. "So I thought you would be the best to give advice."

"If you don't want to be obvious about it - and I wouldn't recommend that you should, anyway, since he's probably still a little pissed at you - you could start with some Thoughtful Gestures. Write him a poem, paint him a picture, sing him a song, make him something. Girls always melt into puddles for that kind of sentimental drivel. I think Kurt would cave too."

Finn continued to lie there on the floor, staring at the ceiling. Artie thoughtfully ran his wheelchair over Finn's big toe, which produced the desired effect: Finn jumped up, yelping, and glared at Artie as he exited the doorway. "I was just leaving."

"Always a pleasure," Artie called after him.

- 


	2. Chapter 2

The instructions looked clear enough on the box: 3 eggs, some oil, some water, plus mix. Throw everything together and bung it all in the oven. How hard could that be?

Finn was slowly realizing that the number of practical skills he had could probably be counted on one hand. Or one finger.

Now if he could only figure out how to disable the damn smoke alarm-

"Finn, what's going on over there?" Kurt yelled as he came through the front door. "The smoke alarm is going off the handle-"

"It's nothing!" Finn yelled hurriedly. "Nothing to see over here, I have it all under control-"

Kurt wrenched the kitchen door open, coughed, and squinted: the kitchen was filled with thin gray smoke. Finn stood there looking at Kurt guiltily, a bent aluminum tray containing something blackly charred in his hands, flour and egg yolk splattered all down the front of his shirt. Kurt sighed.

"I don't even want to know," he said, just as Finn opened his mouth. "But you're cleaning up this mess." With that he pulled up a kitchen stool and climbed up to disable the smoke alarm.

"Uh, I made this for you." He placed the tray of cake in Kurt's hands, smiling hopefully.

Kurt peered down at the cake as though he were trying to decipher a particularly difficult textbook excerpt. "This is... what, exactly?"

"It's a, uh," What was the word Artie used? Ah, yes. "A gesture." He beamed.

After turning the tray and staring at the cake from various angles, Kurt sighed. "Really, Finn? Boob-shaped cakes are only amusing to people like Noah Puckerman and his pack of Neanderthals." He put the tray down on the table. "Thanks for the thought though, I think? But you're still cleaning the kitchen." Then he left.

Finn let his gaze fall over the eggshells, flour, sugar, aluminum foil and heart-shaped cake tin on the kitchen table while he debated with himself whether kissing or killing Kurt would make him happier.

He decided on kissing, but it was a close call. 

"Finn Hudson."

Principal Figgins wasn't intimidating no matter how hard he tried, but Finn did his best to humor him by cowering in his chair a little more.

"Do you know why you've been called into my office today, Finn?"

"No," he said, knowing full well why.

"You've been found guilty of stealing, damaging and defiling school property, and you owe the art department fifty-four dollars and thirty-nine cents to replace the lock you broke and the art supplies you stole."

Innocent blink of the eyes. He'd learned that violent denial just made him look more guilty. "I really don't know -"

"Don't play innocent with me," Figgins snapped. "Jacob Israel saw you spray-painting "KURT HUMMEL IS THE LIGHT OF MY LIFE" onto the second-floor hallway walls early this morning."

"Oh." Fucking narc. Finn made a mental note to have him tossed into the dumpster later today, nice-guy image be damned.

"As punishment, on top of the fees you must pay to our art department, you will single-handedly wash the spray paint off our walls, and you will serve two hours' detention every day for the next week."

Finn slumped back in his chair. Figgins grinned, all teeth.

Later that afternoon Finn was standing on a stool, scrubbing viciously and thinking about how

1) he was going to sue the company for false advertising, because the spray paint can said that the paint was "easily washable with soap and water", and  
2) Kurt was not worth all this undue stress, and he should really go back to looking up cheerleaders' skirts instead,

when Kurt came into view, rubber gloves on and a wet dishrag in hand.

"Hey, I thought I'd come lend a hand," Kurt said, giving him the adorable smile that reminded Finn that he'd still rather look at that smile than the polka-dotted underwear of Cheerios girls, even if it meant him serving ten hours of detention.

"Pssst. Kurt."

"What?" Kurt looked up distractedly. They were in Math class and had been instructed to finish a worksheet on polynomials; naturally Finn had given up and spent the last twenty minutes drawing small explosions in the margins of his paper.

"This is for you." He slid the envelope over to Kurt's desk.

He was quite proud of his handiwork; he'd spent a decent amount of time and energy making it, even if it was just a card. He'd even gotten Artie to help him with the technical details (although he'd had to bribe him with a prized videogame and the promise that he wouldn't continue stealing from Artie's lunches). He looked on eagerly as Kurt slid the card out of the envelope and opened it -

"AND I GUESS IT WOULD BE NICEEE"

Wow. His voice sounded a lot louder than he'd expected on a recording. He winced a little as two dozen heads swiveled over to face them and their teacher looked up from the ninety-nine cent paperback erotica she was inexpertly trying to hide behind a volume of "Remembrance of Things Past".

In hindsight, he should've waited until _after_ class to give Kurt the card.

"IF I COULD TOUCH YOUR B-"

Kurt slammed the card closed, cheeks turning a color that Finn wasn't aware existed in nature, and turned toward Finn. The class erupted into laughter. Suddenly the math worksheet seemed a lot more interesting.

"Kurt Hummel, move to the front, I'm confiscating that. Finn Hudson, see me after class." The two of them looked up into their teacher's face; to Finn's dismay her shoulders were shaking a little, too.

The glare Kurt directed at Finn as he got up and left his seat could've turned a horde of strong men into a pool of jelly. Finn did his best to look contrite.

After class was over Finn walked up to the teacher's desk and said hurriedly, just as she opened her mouth, "I just served an entire week's worth of detention so please, please don't slot me in for any more."

She handed back the card and said simply, "If you're going to make loud, public declarations of love, I suggest you don't cut into class time to do it."

"Yeah, I figured that much out already," Finn muttered. He shoved the card back into his pocket.

"I must say, you're very forward," the teacher continued, "depicting yourself manually stimulating him on the cover of the card."

"What!" Finn cried, scandalized. "T-that's a heart! I drew myself giving him my _heart_!" How was he able to mess up even a _stick figure_?

"Oh." She sounded vaguely disappointed. "Well, judging by the school's rumor mill you've only dated girls so far, so if you like I have some pamphlets and, ah, items of interest I could - "

"Believe me, I have plenty of those already," Finn interjected unthinkingly. She raised an eyebrow at him, but said nothing.

He only realized what he'd said once he was halfway home.

This was not shaping up to be a good day. All Finn wanted at this point was to take a hot shower, dig into a bag of Reese's cups, maybe try to defeat the Rocket Dog level on Katamari-

"Finn. Come over here for a second."

Finn sighed, but threw his backpack onto the floor and headed into the living room. "Burt. What's up?"

This was not going to be a fun conversation, Finn realised; Burt Hummel was humming a little, twirling a pen in his fingers, looking everywhere but at Finn, and generally looking distinctly uncomfortable.

"So. Uh. Kurt told me that you guys have made up after that... fiasco," Burt said, twiddling his fingers. "But, um, your mom and I have heard from... various people that since then, you've been acting kind of strangely. Is there anything going on that you'd like to talk about?"

"What? No, no, nothing at all! Who told you that?" Finn forced a brittle, high-pitched laugh. It was probably Mercedes, that gossipmonger, he thought darkly. Or Artie, who was the one to land him in all these messes in the first place-

"Well, not important." Burt coughed delicately, or as delicately as a man like Burt Hummel could. "And then there's the stuff at home, our kitchen still smells like charcoal... I'm just saying. Is there anything you'd like to discuss?"

Finn briefly toyed with the idea of saying, Well, there's the fact that I would like to do things to your son that couldn't be talked about in polite society, but his mom had already sold their old house and he didn't look forward to the idea of spending a night of the streets. So instead, he said "No. Everything's fine."

Burt mulled over this for a moment and then said, "Okay."

Finn breathed a sigh of relief as he stood up to leave. As he was about to head down to the basement though, Burt said, "One more thing, Finn." He held up a familiar white box – Finn's eyes widened in horror – and waved it lightly. "Your friends – Artie and Tina, I believe? - dropped by this afternoon. Artie said you'd left it in the boy's room."

"Oh, yes?" He really, desperately needed some new friends. Or for a hole to open up in the ground, whichever was easier. Please please please God if you exist please tell me Burt didn't already open the-

"That's quite a collection of scented oils you have there."

Finn buried his face in his hands.

Kurt came home really late the next night – he had a science fair project to work on with Rachel that kept him at her house some nights – and their parents were on a short vacation in Chicago, so the house was extremely quiet. Finn was lounging on the sofa, reading a Batman graphic novel. He looked up as Kurt came in, but his "hello" died in his throat when he saw the expression on Kurt's face.

"Seriously, Finn, what the hell is going on?" His voice sounded strained. "I've been thinking about it, and I mean, what with landing me in the nurse's office, then nearly committing arson and defacing public school property-"

"Those were accidents, well, kind of-"

"-and giving me a boob-shaped cake and the whole spray-paint fiasco and the card with the lewd song and drawing-"

"It wasn't supposed to be boob-shaped-"

"-and you keep giving me these weird looks when you think I don't notice-" - oh shit, he'd noticed - "and touching my hair creepily and, and. I don't know, what's going on with you?"

Then Kurt's eyes suddenly widened. "Is this what I think it is?"

"Um, I hope so? I mean out of the two of us, you're supposed to be the smart one, so..."

Finn trailed off, because Kurt looked like he was either going to

a) beat Finn into a fleshy pulp, or

b) cry,

and Finn was quite certain he didn't like the sound of either option.

"I thought you wanted to make amends," Kurt said, voice low. "But you've just been fucking around with me this whole time?"

"Wait. What? How did you even get that idea?"

"Oh, come off it. Who put you up to this? Karofsky? Just because I've crushed on you for ages doesn't mean you can tease me like that. Because I'm fully aware that you're staunchly heterosexual, and-"

At this point Finn realized that he wasn't going to be able to get a word in edgewise, because Kurt was ranting with that slightly deranged note in his voice, and his eyes were shining and strands of his hair were pasted to his forehead and he smelled like, well, something better than the best burger Finn ever had (which was saying something). So he grabbed Kurt by the arm and kissed him instead.

In retrospect, it wasn't the Greatest Kiss Ever; Kurt hadn't been prepared for it at all and his mouth was still open when Finn pressed their lips together, so there was too much teeth and their noses bumped together awkwardly and there was kind of too much spit too, but Finn thought it was still Pretty Damn Awesome.

When they broke apart, they looked at each other while Finn silently counted the time it took for the silence to become significant – nine seconds – and then Kurt smiled, face flushed and shirt rumpled.

"Hey."

"Hi," Finn replied.

"So."

"So."

"Maybe we should try out some of the things in that box, huh?" Kurt gestured toward their bedroom.

Finn spluttered. "You saw that and you still didn't guess-?"

"Well, maybe you had a secret girl we all didn't know about!" Kurt said huffily. "Besides, after being called a fag – twice – you usually don't assume the person hurling the insults has the hots for you."

He had a point there. "I didn't really realize it until Mercedes and Rachel said stuff that made me think of you that way."

"Oh god, so they were the ones spurring you on to greater heights of idiocy?"

"No, that was Artie."

"I don't know if I should thank him or punch him."

"That's how I feel about him too, sometimes," Finn said, then swallowed. "Um. Bedroom?"

"Yeah." Kurt got up and gave Finn a look from beneath his eyelashes that made Finn's stomach do some impressive acrobatics. "Make sure you bring that hideous sweater." He headed toward their bedroom.

"Kinky," Finn said, following suit.

"You know, it occurs to me," Kurt said lazily, stomach down, legs crossed in the air, "you could've just, you know, told me you liked me."

"Well, I was afraid you'd still be mad at me," Finn said defensively. "And besides, it's kinda hard to just like... say that to a dude."

"Oh yes. I can see how composing a detailed list of things I might like, causing me to break out in rashes, nearly burning our house down, creating a customized singing card, breaking into and stealing supplies from a school classroom, landing yourself in hours of detention, and spending hours scrubbing paint off our school walls would be a lot easier than just saying 'I like you.'"

Finn turned over, ostensibly to glare at Kurt, but found himself ogling the curve of Kurt's collarbone instead. "Are you making fun of me?"

"No, it was merely a comment on your charming ways," Kurt said dryly, but the corner of his mouth quirked a little. Finn leaned in and kissed it.

"Wait, you mean it actually worked?" Artie's voice was heavily dosed with disbelief. "Goddamnit. I owe Mercedes twenty bucks now. Maybe I can borrow off Tina-"

"Wait, what?" Then Finn realized the implications of what Artie just said. "Why you – I am coming over to your house right now and-"

"Finn."

Finn paused for a moment in his tirade, cellphone still pressed to his ear, and turned over to glance at Kurt, who was leaning against the door of their shared bathroom.

Clad in only a smirk and a towel.

Finn decided that tearing Artie apart limb by limb could wait; at the moment he could find much better ways to occupy his time.


End file.
